Manchester United must follow Fergie and drop Varane, Maguire

Raphael Varane can’t hack it and Harry Maguire should go, just like all those other times Sir Alex Ferguson dropped Manchester United captains.

You are the only exception
After Martin Samuel thanked and paid tribute to Roman Abramovich earlier this week, it comes as no surprise to see him warning Chelsea not to expect similar levels of spending from his successor.

Writing in the Daily Mail, he is suspicious of Hansjorg Wyss suggesting that Chelsea are ‘overpriced’ at £3bn, with his and Todd Boehly’s consortium bid told to ‘beware a tactical negotiating game in public’.

‘Haggling over the asking price, while a legitimate part of any deal, gives the impression long-term funding and team-building are going to be a problem for the first time since 2003,’ he adds, as if these numerous billionaires are going to buy a football club and allow it to fall into disrepair through lack of investment.

Samuel goes on to say that the outgoing Chelsea owner is unique. ‘That’s why owners own: the money,’ he writes. ‘That is what made Abramovich, in football terms, exceptional.’

Mediawatch can think of many terms to describe Abramovich and ‘exceptional’ is not towards the top of that list, ‘in football terms’ or otherwise.

Hey, big spender
And then there’s this:

Define: sportswashing. pic.twitter.com/WW6qVbCPsb

— Football365 (@F365) March 4, 2022

Martin Lipton has been similarly deferential to Abramovich this week and that continues in The Sun, where he continues to peddle the idea that ‘the ascent of the Abramovich era began the break up the two club duopoly that had dominated and monopolized the Premier League’.

Liverpool finished second, in between that ‘two club duopoly’ (can there be any other kind of duopoly in this context?) a year before Abramovich took over.

But what of this ‘legacy’ the Russian will leave behind? ‘The obvious legacy of the Abramovich era will be that trophy count and those memories,’ of course. Yet ‘perhaps the real legacy’ is the club’s Cobham academy.

Then again, a couple of lines earlier, Lipton writes:

‘Fans of all clubs want to see their owners among the big spenders, if not the biggest spenders of all.’

There’s your real legacy. What a normal thing to write. Mediawatch thought fans of all clubs want to see their owners run things sensibly, make a difference in the community and invest when necessary, not just spend more than absolutely everyone. If you put the word ‘Twitter’ at the start of that line then fair enough. Otherwise, bit weird.

Run of the Mills
Danny Mills reckons he’s absolutely nailed it on Raphael Varane. If you don’t recall his previous comments on the centre-half, relive the majesty of the summer.

But he is back a few months later to serve humble pie to us all:

“I questioned Varane’s signing when he first came in and whether he could deal with the intensity of our league. He had quite a few injury problems. In La Liga, you’re probably playing seven or eight tough games a season; in the Premier League, every week is a tough game. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing Manchester City or Burnley, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be physical and you need to be robust. I always had doubts about whether he was going to be robust enough, and I got criticised when he first came in for saying that. Subsequently, he’s been injured and in and out of the team, maybe I got lucky with that comment, but that’s the way that I saw it.”

Manchester United have lost two of the 14 Premier League games Varane has started this season, conceding 11 goals.

Manchester United have lost four of the 13 Premier League games Varane has not started this season, conceding 23 goals.

Varane has dealt with “the intensity” of “our league” well enough to start only one Premier League game in which Manchester United have conceded more than a single goal. His worst matches, funnily enough, have been in the presumably far easier Champions League, where Burnley don’t even play.

The Maguire of man
The Daily Mirror website reckons the other Manchester United centre-half is the problem.

‘Ralf Rangnick must follow Man Utd icon Sir Alex Ferguson’s example and make ruthless call’ is the headline to a piece that says ‘the club must take inspiration from their past and act decisively’.

‘The club’s standards have undeniably slipped since Ferguson called time on his illustrious career, but United now have the opportunity to make a stand,’ Michael Gowler writes, reiterating that ‘it’s from the past where they should draw inspiration’.

Mediawatch cannot wait for this example of Ferguson dropping a club captain ‘in an attempt to tone down the pressure being placed upon him’. The anticipation has been masterfully built.

‘While it can only be speculated what line Ferguson would have taken, his reputation for rocking the boat and putting the club before players is in itself telling.’

Hold on…

‘Maguire has proven he isn’t the man to lead United forth and even his peers can see it.

‘All that’s left is for Rangnick to recognise this and replicate Ferguson’s ruthless approach.’

Can you ‘replicate Ferguson’s ruthless approach’ when he himself never did such a thing?

Qualification levels
‘Failing to secure Champions League qualification is unthinkable for a club of United’s stature’ – Jeremy Cross, Daily Mirror.

Can something be ‘unthinkable’ when it came to pass literally three years ago and twice more in the past decade?

Wilder at heart
Writes Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail:

‘Chris Wilder has done an outstanding job since succeeding Neil Warnock and without doubt other clubs in the Championship, and maybe the Premier League too, missed a trick when he was available. In many ways, for Sheffield United, he was like Marcelo Bielsa for Leeds: a transformative manager, who wasn’t given the support he merited when results deteriorated.

‘The season he was sacked, Wilder’s Sheffield United lost nine Premier League games 1-0, and another five by single-goal margins. He deserved better. Now, under Steve Gibson, he’s got it.’

Mediawatch thinks Chris Wilder is a phenomenal manager who many clubs certainly ‘missed a trick’ in not appointing. But Sheffield United were 12 points from safety with ten matches left, having made the worst start to a season in Premier League history, by the time he left.

You can suggest ‘he deserved better’ but there are almost no managers who would not have been sacked in that scenario and it is silly to pretend otherwise.